PHILIP HOPKINS
By PHILIP HOPKINS
THE newly formed Latrobe City Chamber of Commerce (LCCC) is forging ahead to get new members, after filling most of its executive positions at its annual meeting before Christmas.
The chamber’s president, Peter Ceeney, said the annual meeting went smoothly “although we are yet to fill all positions”.
“We had around 35 guests attend our breakfast event with a really positive discussion on the business future of Latrobe City,” he said.
“Our one-and-a-half hour timeline didn’t allow enough time to go deep into this discussion, but gave us the confidence to redo it again in the near future allocating more time.”
Mr Ceeney, who was elected president, said the only executive role yet to be filled was the role of secretary.
Other senior people elected were Sophie Morell from My Support Australia as vice president and Scott Lowater from McMillans Accounting as treasurer.
The committee consists of Marika Gaks – Morwell Bowling Club, Kate Haines – Latrobe Veterinary Group, Christian Schill – Gippsprint, Daniel Buckton – Viatek, Wayne Howe – retired business owner, Helen Spicer – Y.P.Counselling, Matt Lenartowicz – Seven Network and Alex Aeschlimann – NBN Co.
Mr Ceeney said the chamber’s next job was to get membership status up and running and attract members into the fold.
“We will begin to do this about mid January,” he said.
The new body aims to have a membership covering all aspects of business in Latrobe City, from retail to manufacturing, transport/logistics and agriculture. Mr Ceeney is managing director of Morwell manufacturer PfG-Group.
The new chamber is designed to complement existing chambers of commerce and business groups from Moe, Morwell and Traralgon, not replace them.
“This is a single business chamber for Latrobe City that will push Latrobe City,” Mr Ceeney said.
“We want a chamber, like Ballarat, Bendigo and Geelong, a really strong self-containable business chamber – that’s where we need to get to.”
The formation of the LCCC is several years in the making.
It replaces the previous Latrobe City Business Tourism Association, which was set up almost a decade ago with help from Latrobe City Council.
This was a privately run group consisting of business owners and leaders based around tourism.
